DISPATCHES

ACORN: WORKING POOR NEED HELP. ACORN is promoting an
economic stimulus package designed to assist those most effected by
an economic downturn. "To stimulate the economy, what we need to do
is get money into the hands of those most likely to spend it and
those hit hardest by a recession, namely low- and moderate-income
Americans," said Maude Hurd, national president of ACORN, the
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Low-wage
workers are typically the first to be laid off and the last to be
rehired. Unemployment benefits are reaching only a small portion of
those laid off. ACORN called on the president and Congress to include
the following measures in a stimulus package:

* Reform eligibility rules for unemployment insurance to reach
more than the 39% of unemployed workers who currently qualify, to
count workers' most recent earning period in calculating benefits,
and to provide extended benefits beyond the initial 26-week
period.

* In housing, implement a foreclosure/eviction prevention plan and
provide $5 billion in immediate funds for the HOME Investment Program
to build more affordable housing and create jobs.

* In energy: the Bush administration should stop holding up the
release of $300 million in emergency funds that Congress appropriated
for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and
Congress should provide additional funding for this winter.

* Earmark any tax cuts to those who did not benefit from the
"rebates" earlier this year.

For a copy of ACORN's proposal, contact David Swanson at
202-547-2500 or see www.acorn.org.

TRADING AWAY FAMILY FARMS. As the World Trade Organization
(WTO) prepares to negotiate more trade rules for agriculture, and
while President Bush seeks "fast track" authority to push trade deals
through Congress, Food First reports that "free trade" policies are
virtually starving the American family farmer. The US Department of
Labor expects that the US will lose 13.2% of family farm jobs between
1998 and 2008, the largest projected job loss among all occupations.
Driven by trade rules devised in Washington for the WTO that strive
to reduce or eliminate agricultural subsidies, a series of
governmental policies are squeezing out the family farmer while
benefiting corporate agribusiness.

"The disparity is a symptom of a support system that is out of
kilter with the needs of the average cash-strapped farmer," says
Anuradha Mittal, Food First co-director and author of the report.
"Most payments are tied to acreage: more land equals bigger checks."
This is part of the "get big or get out" policy that drives farming
in the United States and has accelerated corporate concentration in
agriculture. Today only two companies, Cargill and Continental,
control two-thirds of all grain trade in the world. Meanwhile,
between 1994 and 1996 about 25% of all hog farmers, 10% of all grain
farmers, and 10% of all dairy farmers went out of business.

The loss of family farms is wiping out rural communities across
America. Family farm dollars once circulated through these
communities, buying equipment, supplies, and groceries from local
merchants. Larger corporate farms bypass this community network in an
effort to centralize their purchases. This has endangered the very
existence of rural communities in America.

The report concludes that the excessive focus on exports is
forcing overproduction and driving down farm prices. Low prices hurt
American farmers and make it impossible for farmers in other
countries to compete. Thus this model is driving both American family
farmers and their Third World counterparts from the land. A more
healthy alternative is a model that focuses on the strength of the
family farm, which is relatively efficient, generates jobs, and can
conserve the environment and preserve rural communities better than
corporate farms. The report can be found at (www.foodfirst.org).

HOUSE PLANS MORE TAX CUTS. The House Ways and Means
Committee, on a party-line vote Oct. 12, approved a bill that over
the next three years would almost double the size of the Bush tax
cuts enacted last May, Citizens for Tax Justice reported. Officially,
the new corporate and individual tax cuts are estimated to cost $212
billion over the next three fiscal years (and the actual cost is
likely to be considerably higher). But the CTJ analysis of the bill's
effect in calendar 2002 (see www.ctj.org) finds:

* 41% of the tax cuts would go the best-off 1% of all taxpayers,
whose average tax cut in 2002 would be almost $27,000 each.

* Almost three-quarters of the 2002 tax cuts would go to the best
off tenth of all taxpayers.

* Only 7% of the tax cuts would go the bottom three-fifths of
taxpayers.

FIRST THINGS FIRST ON TAXES. US Rep. Jan Schakowksy,
D-Ill., unveiled the First Things First Act of 2001, which would
delay parts of President Bush's tax cut that benefit the wealthy
until critical domestic needs are met. The bill would reinstate the
top marginal tax rate at 39.6%; freeze tax rates for the current
30.5% and 35.5% brackets; and freeze changes in the estate tax for
individuals while providing the small business and farm exemption
that would have been allowed under the Democratic alternative. Before
any changes in the upper marginal rates or estate tax are allowed to
go into effect, the act requires adequate responses to the needs
created by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the US, including
impacts on workers; extended solvency of Social Security and Medicare
trust funds; provision of a comprehensive prescription drug benefit
under Medicare; federal funding of school modernization and the
hiring of 100,000 teachers; and a significant reduction in the number
of people who face worst case housing needs. For more information
call 202-225-2111 or mail Schakowsky, 515 Cannon HOB, Washington,
D.C. 20515.

FAST TRACK VOTE LOOMS. As "fast track" legislation moves
towards a floor vote in the House of Representatives, Green Party
activists joined labor unions, environmental groups and the House
Democratic leadership in opposing the bill. Ben Manski of the
national Green Party's steering committee and a Wisconsin Green said
working Americans have repeatedly told their representatives not to
approve fast track legislation. "Each and every member of Congress
must know that if they betray their constituents by voting for fast
track now, the Green Party will use those votes in the 2002
elections," he said. Call your Congress member at 202-224-3121

BIN LADEN MONEY TIED TO BUSH. President George W. Bush on
Sept. 24 announced a crackdown on the financial networks of
terrorists and those who support them. But Wayne Madsen reported in
In These Times that Bush's own businesses were once tied to
financial figures in Saudi Arabia who support Osama bin Laden. In
1979, Bush's first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained $50,000 from
James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend who was the sole US
business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy
Saudi Arabian family and a brother to Osama bin Laden.

According to Madsen, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then
acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath
represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both
to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank
of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who went on to fund Osama
bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the '80s in
what has been called the "largest bank fraud in world financial
history" by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the
'80s, BCCI also acted as a conduit for laundering money intended for
clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the
Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra
affair.

When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker
and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in
Houston, Madsen wrote. Bath ran a business for bin Mahfouz in Houston
and joined a partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI's
frontman in Houston's Main Bank. Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken
Energy Corporation, still with Bush as a principal. When Harken ran
into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased
a 17.6% stake in the company. Bakhsh was a business partner with
Pharaon in Saudi Arabia; his banker there was bin Mahfouz.

Bath finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992 for his
Saudi business relationships, accused of funneling Saudi money
through Houston in order to influence the foreign policies of the
Reagan and first Bush administrations. But bin Mahfouz allegedly has
been financing the bin Laden terrorist network, Madsen wrote, making
Bush a US citizen who has done business with those who finance and
support terrorists. According to USA Today, bin Mahfouz and
other Saudis attempted to transfer $3 million to various bin Laden
front operations in Saudi Arabia in 1999. ABC News reported the same
year that Saudi officials stopped bin Mahfouz from contributing money
directly to bin Laden. (Bin Mahfouz's sister is also a wife of Osama
bin Laden, a fact that former CIA Director James Woolsey revealed in
1998.)

R'S TURNABOUT ON AFGHAN ATTACK. Republicans who are loudly
questioning the patriotism of those who dare to criticize George W.
Bush's response to the Sept. 11 attack apparently do not remember the
aftermath of the two US embassies that were bombed in Africa in 1998.
After Clinton sent cruise missiles into Afghanistan, obliterating
Osama bin Laden's main camp -- and missing killing bin Laden by 45
minutes -- Republican congressional leaders, including Sens. Trent
Lott and Orrin Hatch, Reps. Henry Hyde, J.C. Watts and Bob Barr and
other right-wingers walked out to microphones and TV cameras on the
Capitol steps and not only refused to express support for the raid,
they accused Clinton of staging the attack to take the country's
attention off impeachment proceedings.

AIRLINES FOILED AIRPORT SECURITY PROBE. Just two months
before 10 hijackers commandeered two jetliners after takeoff from
Logan International Airport, airport officials were poised to use
undercover state police to probe for security weaknesses at Logan.
But the airlines vehemently objected and the proposal was set aside,
Matt Carroll reported Oct. 17 in the Boston Globe. Despite a
long record of security breaches, a committee of airline executives
strenuously objected in July to the proposal to use undercover state
troopers to sneak weapons through checkpoints to test for security
weaknesses. Plans were shelved.

PANEL PURSUES SS PRIVATIZATION. The stock market may be
tanking under the weight of the war on terrorism but a presidential
commission is continuing its plans to privatize the Social Security
system. As reported in the Oct. 19 Washington Post, commission
Co-Chairman Richard D. Parsons said that while "in many ways the
world has changed" since Sept. 11, "in a substantive sense, the task
before the commission remains largely as before." Parsons said "there
is a growing consensus" favoring the creation of personal retirement
accounts, with the debate centered on whether they should be created
from existing Social Security payroll tax revenue or from other
sources that would amount to an "add-on" to Social Security. When
Bush named the commission in May he stacked it with members who
supported privatization.

R'S STEP UP JUDGE NOMINEE FIGHT. Republicans are stepping
up their campaign to force Senate Democrats to approve George W.
Bush's right-wing judicial nominees, accusing the D's of being
unpatriotic at the same time the R's are threatening to block foreign
aid appropriations until there is action. R's complain that there are
more than 100 court vacancies, but D's note that many of those
benches have been vacant since the Republican Senate refused to
schedule votes on then-President Clinton's moderate choices for the
federal courts over the past few years. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah,
who as chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the last Congress
helped bottle up many of those choices, told a handful of reporters,
according to Neil Lewis of the New York Times, "Anyone who is
interested in helping the president in the war on terrorism should
support the president's judicial nominees." D's note that, on the
average, a Clinton nominee for a judgeship had to wait more than 330
days to get a hearing, while the average for Bush's nominees has been
less than 100 days -- and the White House contributed to the delay by
refusing to vet the nominees through the American Bar Association, as
presidents have in the past.

BANKRUPTCY DEFORM STALLED. A bill that would have made it
more difficult for consumers to clear their debts through bankruptcy
has been set aside in Congress, unlikely to re-emerge this year,
lawyers and analysts told the New York Times. The Senate and
House passed versions of the legislation in March, and a conference
was set for this fall to reconcile the differences. But with consumer
confidence considerably weaker since the terrorist attacks on Sept.
11, lawmakers' enthusiasm for the legislation may have dimmed, the
Times reported Oct. 19.

ASHCROFT SUPPORTS OFFICIAL SECRECY. Attorney General John
Ashcroft has issued a new statement of policy that encourages federal
agencies to resist Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests
whenever they have legal grounds to do so, the Secrecy News
reported. The new statement supersedes a 1993 memorandum from
Attorney General Janet Reno which promoted disclosure of government
information through the FOIA unless it was "reasonably foreseeable
that disclosure would be harmful." The Ashcroft policy rejects this
"foreseeable harm" standard. Instead, the Justice Department
instructs agencies to withhold information whenever there is a "sound
legal basis" for doing so. See Ashworth's memo at
(www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/2001foiapost19.htm) and Reno's at
(www.fas.org/sgp/clinton/reno.html).

TPP HONORED. The Progressive Populist once again has
been nominated for an Utne Reader Alternative Press Award.
TPP was nominated in the category of political magazines.
Other nominees are The American Prospect, Do or Die,
In These Times, Mother Jones, The Nation, New
Rules, The Progressive, Tikkun and Washington
Monthly. We were a finalist in a similar category in 1998. In
1996 we were a finalist in the category of "best new title." The
Alternative Press Awards are chosen by the editors of Utne
Reader and will be announced in late December, but readers may
view the nominees and also vote their preference in the Online
Readers' Choice Poll at (www.utne.com/apa) after Nov. 1. Even if you
don't have Internet access, you may vote for us by promptly renewing
your subscription and perhaps even sending a gift subscription to a
friend or your local library or coffee shop!

TALK SHOW YANKED AS 'UNPATRIOTIC'. Criticism of the Bush
administration, and questions about the attacks on Afghanistan
apparently got Peter Werbe's left-of-center talk show yanked from
KOMY-AM of Santa Cruz, Calif., without even notifying him or his
network. Faced with complaints, on Oct. 6 the KOMY station owner took
to the airwaves and denounced the show and its host, and "apologized"
for having Werbe on "his" airwaves. Werbe, who broadcasts on the
ieamerica Radio Network based in Detroit, is one of only two
left-of-center nationally syndicated programs on the AM band. (The
other liberal host is Mike Malloy.) Werbe's show is broadcast on the
AM band in 14 cities and from the ieamerica Web site. See
www.ieamericaradio.com, www.peterwerbe.com and www.mikemalloy.com. To
protest this violation of the station's license, which obligates it
to serve the community, not the owner's right wing politics, call
KOMY at 831-479-1080 or email owner Michael Zwerling at
mz@ksco.com.

COALITION URGES COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT. The National
Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) joined with US Reps. Thomas
Barrett, Luis Gutierrez and other members of Congress in urging
federal banking agencies to shore up America's communities by
updating the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Passed in 1977, CRA
mandates that banks and thrifts meet the credit needs of all the
communities in which they are chartered and from which they take
deposits. John Taylor of NCRC said "A stronger CRA is needed to
protect our communities as well as resume the progress in lending and
investing." The US Department of Housing and Urban Development found
that African-American neighborhoods are five times more likely to
receive "subprime" refinance loans at higher interest rates than
white neighborhoods. Neighborhood residents face fewer choices in
loan products and become more vulnerable to predatory lenders when
subprime lenders dominate lending in their community. Barrett,
Gutierrez, and 34 other members of Congress are co-sponsoring CRA
Modernization Act, H.R. 865, which would extend CRA to independent
mortgage companies, insurance firms and securities companies. H.R.
865 would also mandate enhancements to data disclosure that the
Federal Reserve has proposed but not yet acted upon. See
(www.ncrc.org).

WIDESPREAD DETENTION CONCERNS ACLU. Unprecedented
government secrecy is raising questions about the fairness of the
government's investigation into the terrorist attacks, the American
Civil Liberties Union said Oct. 17 as it asked the Justice Department
to release more information about the more than 700 people held in
detention since September 11. In a letter to Attorney General John
Ashcroft, the ACLU said it was troubled by reports that some
detainees have been impeded in their ability to contact lawyers and
their families. If accurate, "these reports raise fundamental due
process issues that we hope the Department will promptly address,"
the ACLU letter said. For more information see (www.aclu.org).

MALPRACTICE PAYOUTS AVERAGE $43,000. Refuting insurance
company claims that medical malpractice verdicts are forcing dramatic
rate increases, a new analysis shows that insurance companies are
paying victims of medical negligence on average only $42,607 This is
only slightly more than the $39,093 average payout a decade earlier.
Moreover, medical malpractice costs, as a percentage of national
health care expenditures, are at an all time low, 0.55%. The analysis
for the Center for Justice & Democracy (CJ&D) examined year
2000 insurance data. According to CJ&D Executive Director Joanne
Doroshow, "Some recent reports are warning of an impending nationwide
medical malpractice insurance crisis. Insurance companies are blaming
judges and juries for the decision to make insurance unaffordable for
doctors. This is a bogus public relations scam intended to pressure
lawmakers to unfairly limit the rights of injured Americans to take
negligent doctors to court. See (www.centerjd.org) or phone (212)
267-2801.

UNILEVER SUBSIDIZES ANTIGLOBAL PROTESTS. Unilever, one of
the world's biggest multinationals, has given millions of dollars
through its Ben & Jerry's subsidiary to anti-globalization
protest groups and critics of corporate greed, Financial Times
reported Oct. 15. Activist organisations such as Global Exchange and
the Ruckus Society, which trained and organised demonstrators who
shut down the meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle in
1999, have received some of the $5 million Unilever made available to
progressive initiatives via the ice-cream company famous for its
social conscience. Unilever gave the money to Ben & Jerry's
Foundation when it bought the company last year. The ice-cream
company's charitable arm distributed the funds. When Unilever bought
the company for $326 million, it agreed to contribute $5 million to
the foundation, another $5 million to a venture capital fund for
ethical start-ups and a minimum of $1.1 million a year to grants for
social change groups. The Ruckus Society, which trains activists in
hanging banners, tree-sits and street protests, got $100,000,
Financial Times reported.

SOCIAL CHANGE ONLINE BOOKSTORE. 100 Fires Books, called
"the first comprehensive fully searchable social change online
bookstore in the United States" by its founder, Paul Cienfuegos, has
opened at www.100fires.com. The store claims 1,200 titles in stock
from every major independent social change-oriented publisher,
searchable by title, author, keyword, or by clicking on any one of 50
general subject headings.